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Larouche and the Greens
Big Brother cracking down on Chinese herbal medicine
Greens or Reds?
(1) Larouche and the Greens
Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 08:15:25 -0400 From: "Henry H. Lindner"
I signed a petition to investigate 9/11 and was then contacted by Anton
Chaitkin who is associated with Lyndon LaRouche. We talked about the
current crisis for 30 minutes. Anton obviously understood many of the
dynamics at work in the US government now. So I spent some time reading
LaRouche's writings and speaches. LaRouche is obviously highly
intelligent and has many good ideas. He welds philosophy, science,
mathematics, history, and politics together in almost every essay. His
basic argument about the destructivenss of empiricism and the need for
hypothesis and theory is quite true and something I've been discovering
for myself. Yet LaRouche seems to be labelled as some sort of crank or
cult leader. To get a flavor of LaRouche, you can go to
www.larouchein2004.net and read some of the latest essays about the
ideology of the Neocon fascists. Can you tell me what you know about
LaRouche or link or send along any articles you have on him?
Henry
Reply:
This matter is important to me, because I am occasionally accused of
being an apologist for Larouche. I want to both acknowledge a debt, and
state my differences.
Larouche's affiliate in Australia is the Citizens Electoral Council
(CEC), a Christian fundamentalist group and publisher of a newspaper
called New Citizen: http://www.cecaust.com.au/
I bought and studied Larouche literature (books, journals, newspapers)
in 1995-6, after someone gave me a copy of the New Citizen. I have not
bought any in the last 5 years, but their website shows that their line
has not changed: http://www.larouchepub.com/
I also met an ex-Larouchite, John Seale, who runs a publishing house
called David Syme College. Seale incorporates much Larouche thinking
himself, but brands Larouche a Marxist and opposes him. Seale was a
behind-the scenes contributor to an ABC (public TV) documentary against
the Larouche movement. Some of Seale's ideas were taken into the One
Nation Party, (by the back door, via David Etteridge) and helped to
wreck it. It was his idea that the Party should be set up as a Company
run by a Board of Directors. One Nation was giving the Establishment a
fright a few years ago, attracting grassroots support, but the Company
structure caused its collapse.
The ABC doco was a hatchet job, in which Larouche people were
interviewed but not given any right of reply to the editorial line. A
disgrace, yet so common in the media.
Larouche's basic line is that, while we've been squaring off with the
Soviet Union, the real enemy has been within the West itself. This enemy
is the "Internationalist" forces operating in the name of the "Open
Society", and promoting Capitalist economic policies, on the one hand,
and Fabian social policies on the other.
Larouche's Fabians are my Trotskyists; I consider Trotskyism the driving
force, leading the Fabians by the nose.
The Green movement is in there too, at the top level, even though
activists on the ground may not realize it. The fact that the opening
and closing ceremonies of the Sydney Olympics were New Age liturgies
featuring, at the end, Greek priestesses, shows the high connections of
the Green movement. Apparently Maurice Strong, of the Earth Charter and
the Commission on Global Governance, was heavily involved. More on
Strong at http://www.sovereignty.net/p/sd/strong.html
It is through Larouche literature that I discovered the role of H. G.
Wells, Bertrand Russell, and the Baruch Plan, in the push for World
Government. But I did not take Larouche literature at face value: I
looked up Russell's book Has Man a Future?, which I had a copy of. I
located Wells' book The Open Conspiracy at the Australian National
University (ANU) library; and I found the Baruch Plan there too, in the
1946 issues of the Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences. I have since put all
of that material on my website.
Surprisingly, Larouche material NEVER mentions Carroll Quigley's book
The Anglo-American Establishment; yet it fits on well with his line.
I have shown that Rhodes' conspiracy joined up with the Zionist one, by
means of the Balfour Declaration of 1917. When Larouche talks about the
"British", he means, in the main, the combined Rhodes-Zionist
conspiracies.
I say "in the main", because the Trotskyists are both part of it, and a
challenge to it.
All of the conspiratorial forces are working against the nation-state,
national independence. The Trots, despite their pretences, are
supporting Free Trade, alias Capitalism, in the strategy first
enunciated by Karl Marx; but once Capitalism has destroyed national
economies and cultures, they want to break this alliance and establish
their own world order.
Larouche literature NEVER acknowledges intellectual debts to outsiders
not in their camp, independent researchers like me. Like the Communists,
they enunciate a party line (over and over), and separate themselves
from all who don't accept the lot.
Larouche does tackle Zionism, but he's so afraid of being called a Nazi,
that he gets in first and calls everyone else Nazis. I don't like this.
Larouche's support for Clinton is phony - he really thought Clinton was
a disaster, though preferable to Bush.
Larouch's "American exceptionalism" becomes tiring after a while.
His support for the Catholic Church is paper-thin; basically, he says
that the French Monarchy was preferable to the French Revolution and the
systems that came since. John Ralston Saul (Jewish it seems, and
promoted by the media) says the same in his book Voltaire's Bastards. I
once heard Saul speak at a Trotskyist meeting at ANU.
The Green movement may be part of a One-World Conspiracy, but Larouche's
argument that it's OK for the human population to keep on exploding, and
consumption of resources to keep on rising, is not at all credible.
But, of course, EIR contains important material.
I had some emails from an anti-Larouche campaigner, Brian Garling, here
in Australia. He accused me of being an apologist for Larouche. He says
that the Larouche movement is a cult, and part of the Illuminati.
Here is the discussion:
Subject: Re: [Fwd: LaRouche etc] Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 07:42:41 +1100
From: "Brian Garling" bgarling@westserv.net.au
BRIAN: You appear to be an apologist for LaRouche.
PETER: Just because I say he's right about some things? What then of my
criticism of Larouche?
I bought some Larouche literature about 1995 & 1996, but I did not like
the heavy phone calls I got from CEC HQ in Melbourne, pressuring me to
buy more.
Even though I bought some Larouche books, magazines & newspapers over a
period of a year or so about 1995/6, I also buy heaps of other books etc
of all kinds. Larouche material would be less than 1 part in 1000 of the
material I have.
You know that Larouche people talk of Larouche all the time. In what %
of my website do I even mention Larouche? Only perhaps 1% of the
articles; you can check by doing a site-search in Freefind, which I
provide on my site.
Even then, some of the time I'm being critical. For example, I have a
feature on Sir James Goldsmith's book The Trap, even though Larouche
condemns him as a stooge:
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/goldsmith.html
PETER: [You suggest] that the Larouche movement is New Age and part of
the Illuminati.
BRIAN: I don't suggest anything. I am stating fact. The research I gave
you was based on personal contact from within the LaRouche movement and
from credible reference sources i.e. their own writings.
PETER Yet Larouche is shunned by the media - ignored and, where
mentioned, ridiculed without the right of reply - whereas the New Age
movement is promoted. One does not find Larouche material in the New Age
bookshops.
PETER: Did you ever meet Michael J. Sharpe? He was one of the CEC's best
writers. I never agreed with his line entirely - e.g. on Dr H. C. Coombs
- but I always found that he was revealing information I did not know.
For example, I admire Coombs - I met him a number of times - but I think
the welfare system he handed Australia has been detrimental to
Aborigines. On the other hand, he benefited them in other ways.
After a number of discussions by phone, I met Michael J. Sharpe at CEC
HQ in Melbourne when I was there once, and we had a good discussion. It
happened by accident; I was supposed to meet someone else - one of their
telephone missionaries - but that person had to go home to look after
her children.
Later, Michael J. Sharpe "disappeared", and when I asked for a
forwarding address or phone#, they gave me a wrong phone#, and were not
helpful when I reported the problem.
The 4 Corners doco branded Michael J. Sharpe the CEC's "chief spy".
That doco was one-sided. I'm a firm believer that none of us is 100%
right about anything. In my view, the Larouche people are right about
some things - and for that I weill acknowledge them - but they also have
their "blinkers", i.e. they exclude info contrary to their line. There's
no real debate within Larouche literature. {end}
(2) Big Brother cracking down on Chinese herbal medicine
The recent "recall" of herbal medicines processed by Pan Pharmaceuticals
was just the first shot in a crackdown on alternative medicine. Now, Big
Brother wants to ban traditional Chinese herbal therapies.
Calls to regulate secret herbs and spices
Elizabeth Colman
The Australian {Note: this is Murdoch's flagship paper, which charges
$1.40 for each access to archived material ... that's why I don't supply
URLs, but type the material in instead}
May 5, 2003
Chinese herbs may be dispensed as medicines, but unlike packaged drugs,
they are exempt from scrutiny by the national drugs regulator.
There is no way of knowing if the roots and powders handed out by
herbalists have passed their use by date, or are even what the
practitioner says they are.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration, which last week blew the whistle
on manufacturing giant Pan Pharmaceuticals, has no jurisdiction over raw
medicines.
John Eden, director of the Natural Therapies unit at Prince of Wales
Hospital in Sydney, is convinced poor-quality and substituted herbs are
being dispensed by herbal practitioners.
"There have been cases reported of poisoning due to the raw herbs being
contaminated with heavy metals such as lead," Dr Eden told The
Australian.
"Raw herbals need to be tested as well as processed herbal remedies."
Fiona Cummings, director of the TGA's office of complementary medicines,
agreed there was a need for scrutiny of traditional medicines sold raw.
"Anything that is presented as medicine to consumers should be subject
to similar strict standards and truth-in-labelling rules laid down by
the TGA," she said.
But Dr Cummings said this was not the TGA's responsibility.
"It's a matter for the states and territories," she said.
One hospital-grade traditional herb supplier, Medi-herb, withdrew the
herb stephania, commonly used as a dietary aid, because it was too hard
to ensure its purity.
Reg Lehmann, Medi-herb's research manager, said supplies from Singapore
and China were found to be contaminated with another herb, the poisonous
aristolochia. "We tested eight samples, and three contained aristolochic
acid," Dr Lehmann said.
In 2000, Victoria introduced a licensing system for sellers of
traditional medicines. Other states and territories are yet to follow.
Why not leave it up to the customers? Aren't herbal remedies much less
dangerous than the Drug Companies' products? Haven't they been subjected
to informal testing over thousands of years?
(3) Greens or Reds ... reply to Winston Smith
WINSTON: there was a debate in the mid 80's, before the Green Party was
set up in Oz, over whether to allow members of the Democratic Socialist
Party (Marxists who publish Green Left Weekly), to become dual members.
The DSP and their allies lost the debate. Your suggestion that the
Australian Green Party has been taken over by Marxists is, in my
experience, just plain wrong. The green movement as a whole is much
broader - and even less dominated by left-wingers, let alone Marxists.
PETER: The Green Party in Australia promotes Gay Marriage, and Open
Borders (asylum-seekers should be allowed to just turn up). Aren't these
Marxist policies?
If the Greens were really "green", they would be opposing the crackdown
on herbal medicine. Instead thgey are silent. This party is full of
would-be regulators.
WINSTON: To say that greens are dismantling 'our economy' is b.......
WINSTON: There are many (although not enough) 'green-minded' farmers.
Your comments ignore them completely and would be offensive to them.
WINSTON: Our entire global economy is demonstrably unsustainable;
agricultural systems are a subset of that, and the same applies to most
contemporary agriculture.
I've just been on a camping trip to
(a) the Wagga area, where I stayed on a farm (the owner is on this
list), observed erosion gullies and encountered salinity problems
(b) the irrigation areas around Leeton and Griffith, where rice is
usually grown, but which are drought-stricken
(c) the wheat-growing areas around Rankins Springs and West Wyalong,
where the winter crops seem to have been sown, but they will all fail
unless there's rain.
I'll be partly agreeing, and partly disagreeing, with your line.
In 1978, I started a branch of Friends of the Earth at Burnie, a small
industrial city of 25,000 people in Tasmania. We campaigned against many
industries, including the factory that produced sulphuric acid. It shut
down, throwing 200 people out of work. For the first time, I realized
the potential destructiveness of Green movements. The others went on to
attack the Hydro-Electric Commission, but I left the group and wrote to
The Advocate newspaper opposing them.
(3.1) I had the following discussion with Gavan McCormack
<gavan@coombs.anu.edu.au>, a leading Marxist writer, whose book "Cold
War Hot War" suggests that South Korea may have started the Korean War,
who is now a leading Green. He's a research Professor at ANU, an expert
on Japan, China and Korea, author of "The Emptiness of Japanese
Affluence", opponent of rice-growing in the Australian semi-deserts,
opponent of China's Three Gorges dam, and opponent of its diversion of
water from the south to the much drier north. He's an advocate of
Deconstruction, and denies that Feminism has mounted a sex war.
I commented on Pim Fortuyn's murder by a Green (an animal-rights
activist). I won't include his letters to me here, since he doesn't like
being quoted when speaking off the record, but here are my letters to
him.
PETER (letter 1): Fortuyn was a Leftist, and a likely prospect for Prime
Minister. I would have thought that the Greens would have done some
soul-searching after this incident, to discourage similar acts.
It's not the first of its type. There was the Unabomber; there was that
Jenkins fellow, holding up schools in Melbourne. And then I recall how
activists were putting sugar into the petrol tanks of forestry machines.
Surely the Hate is not mine, but the assassin's. Fortuyn had blamed the
politically entrenched lobbies for creating the climate in which his
assassin felt he should act.
The Greens' forest policies have made hardwood timber too expensive for
all but the yuppies; the working class now lives in homes made of brick
& radiata pine.
Bob Brown {leader of the Greens} has an old wooden house at Liffey in
Tasmania, probably built without all the regulations that now impede
do-it-yourself types trying to be self-sufficient. {Yet Brown does
nothing to oppose those new building regulations}
As the forests in Tasmania have been locked up, more & more hillside
farmland is being turned over to monocultural forestry plantations. This
land used to be available for small farming.
Yet, there is no reduction in electricity use, or in the escalating
throw-away society. Legislators try to force old cars off the road, to
make way for new ones, most of which are not built to last, & can't be
fixed by home handymen.
PETER (letter 2): In 1978 I started a branch of Friends of the Earth in
Burnie, Tasmania, which was very successful in a number of campaigns.
A number of talented people joined, and I soon found myself in a
minority. Phil xx then became the leader. I remember him talking about a
book on Ecoterrorism he had read. Our group never did any such things.
This theme - Ecoterrorism - has been lurking in the recesses of the
Green movement ever since then. The assassination of Fortuyn should be
seen in that context. I'm suggesting that the Green movement purge
itself of such ideas; the only way to do that is to acknowledge their
presence (albeit as a minor theme).
More widely, I believe in a broad "green" movement, one that allows for
diverse viewpoints within itself, rather than disparaging all
dissidents.
I feel that the Cultural Revolution which began in the 60s has gone off
the rails; unless its excesses can be moderated by insiders (and I count
myself one), a reaction might sweep the whole lot away, as happened in
China (which seems to have gone too far the other way).
Fundamentalist Good-Bad ideas are part of the image Bob Brown's Greens
present: they are the good David battling the Goliath of everyone else.
If I focus on their excesses, it's because they are too monolithic.
PETER (Letter 3): I drew attention to dissident greens such as James,
Bill Mollison, Patrick Moore and Tim Flannery. Lovelock advocates
nuclear power (I don't); Mollison has written against "the EcoFascists";
Moore says that we should harvest forests instead of locking them up;
harvest, but continually re-plant; Flannery opposes immigration, and
endorses limited whaling.
GAVAN: the party to which they dissent might only have existed in your
mind.
PETER: All those laws now binding me, enacted by "Greens", would then be
a figment of my imagination.
Today, I attend my court case for wearing a Chinese hat while riding a
bicycle last winter. Pedal Power is behind this crackdown {on cyclists
not wearing helmets, or riding at night without lights}. ...
The Communists have simply re-badged themselves as "Greens". The genuine
greens have been pushed aside by Party men.
{end}
(3.2) National Parks - the regulation of contact with Nature
A letter to the Canberra Times, about the beach at Meroo.
8/2/99
Dear Editor,
Going camping, occasionally, is important to many Australians. Sometimes
we like to stay in caravans or cabins, with facilities and comforts, and
sometimes we like to get right away from civilization and rough it. It's
a bit like aborigines going walkabout from time to time, to renew their
roots to the land.
Campers come in two types: bushwalkers, who carry a backpack, and
car-based campers, who drive to where they camp. However, bushwalkers
have cars too - they usually drive to the starting point of their
bushwalk, and leave a car at the end-point.
Some bushwalkers regard car-based campers as a threat to nature. And so,
they have been promoting regulations which, in the case of some national
parks and conservation areas, make car-based campers feel unwelcome, as
if intruders. Heavy fines are part of the regulatory regime; in such
situations, rangers take on a policing function.
The issue is, should people be allowed to have "unmediated" contact with
nature? Or should there always be a mediator - the ranger and the
regulatory regime? It's a bit like a theological question that raged in
medieval Europe for centuries: does one need a mediator between oneself
and God? The Church hierarchy came out on the "yes" side - the mediator
being the priest and the Church - whereas mystics and protestants often
supported the "no" case, arguing for the priority of direct experience
of God.
Direct contact with nature, from time to time, seems important for the
soul. Traditional Aborigines had it, but we all need it. It's a matter
of regaining a spiritual balance that, in everyday life, we often lose.
Therefore, even though the MAJOR natural sites - Ayer's Rock, the Great
Barrier Reef, the top of Mt Kosciusko, and many others - need to be
enclosed in National Parks with a regulatory regime, it is also
important that OTHER areas of natural beauty and solitude be made
available for "unmediated" contact with nature.
State Forests often fall into this category. Currently there is a push
to have more and more of them turned into National Parks. As State
Forests, they are usually free, with few rules; as National Parks, they
charge fees and impose a regulatory regime and fines.
One of the reasons given for promoting the switch from State Forest to
National Park, is that campers damage the environment, by collecting
firewood ... etc. Four-wheel drivers are considered major culprits, for
going off the track; on account of their sins, families - who mostly
have 2-wheel-drives - may lose their freedoms too.
There is now only one beach betwen Sydney and Adelaide where one can
camp for free and without rules - Meroo - and now they want to regulate
it too. It's a far cry from 30 years ago; has it gone too far?
{At Meroo} ... no water or toilets are provided ...
A certain kind of camper is attracted to this area - those who like to
abandon civilization for a time, and rough it. They swim, surf, go
fishing (beach, rock and lake), go snorkelling, and some even bring
canoes (to canoe on the lakes). I have never heard a radio there, or
seen any sort of power equipment. One finds families with young children
and teenagers, and networks of friends. Only for two weeks at Christmas
is the area a bit congested; the rest of the time, one can find solitude
as well as company there. Although the campers use dead timber from the
forest for firewood, the forest looks as vigorous today as when I first
saw it.
Some campers bring dogs, which would not be allowed if the area became a
national park. Were that to happen, other restrictions would no doubt be
introduced, and a regime of much greater regulation than at present. The
campers who have enjoyed the area, and each other's company, so much
over the years, are apprehensive that changes now under way may
inadvertently bring their happy times to an end.
{end}
And that indeed happened; Meroo was transferred from State Forests to
National Parks. There is now no unregulated beach between Sydney and
Adelaide.
(3.3) Greens' destruction of the native hardwood (eucalypt) forest
industry, promotion of "softwood substitution"
High price of the great green mirage
Sydney Morning Herald
Date: March 6 2003
The environment movement has been taken over by people with a class
warfare agenda, writes Miranda Devine.
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2003/03/05/1046826433184.htm
Nowhere are the tragic consequences of the green movement's dishonesty
more apparent than in the destruction of the NSW timber industry, which
once led the world with its skill and innovation. Right now, after what
should have been the best logging season in 50 years, timber mills on
the North Coast are running out of logs, 1400 jobs are at risk and the
certainty the industry was promised by the Government and conservation
groups three years ago has turned out to be a mirage. ... {end}
Green laws making timber expensive
If you wonder why the cost of paper and wood products have skyrocketed,
check this site to see how many mills have been affected by
environmental regulations
March 29, 2003
Mill Closures & Curtailments in the U.S. From 1989 Until 2003:
http://usconservation.org/dam/millclosures.htm
(3.4) Greens express concern for injured wildlife hit by drivers, yet
Greens' eyes are dry when their forest policies lead to huge bushfires
which destroy the trees they "saved", and wipe out the wildlife
Bushfires: the solution is clear
Sydney Morning Herald
Date: May 8 2003
Bush management continues to anger farmers, scientists and firefighters,
writes Miranda Devine.
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2003/05/07/1052280321826.htm
When the calamitous January bushfires were racing through the Snowy
Mountains, the only safe haven for kilometres around for kangaroos,
wallabies and three workers trying to bulldoze a fire trail, was a 60
metre-wide clearing under the TransGrid high voltage lines.
What irony that this was the same 60 metre-wide clearing, bulldozed in
2001 to protect power supplies from bushfire, for which TransGrid was
prosecuted by four agencies, paid $500,000 in fines and settlements to
the NSW and ACT governments, and was crucified by environmentalists. It
was the same clearing which so enraged the Premier, Bob Carr, he vowed
to "throw the book" at TransGrid, which he damned for "environmental
vandalism".
But the real environmental vandals are the misguided urban greens whose
ongoing opposition to hazard reduction burning and the maintenance of
fire trails has finally resulted in the annihilation of much of the
flora and fauna in the high country national parks of NSW, Victoria and
the ACT. So much for biodiversity.
Environmentalists who fought to protect hollow logs on the forest floor,
because they were home to the long-toothed rat, have ensured few rats,
long-toothed or otherwise, could escape the inferno that hit their
forest this year. The famed pygmy possum colony at Blue Cow ski-field
was wiped out. Only three possums have been found alive, say locals.
And that's not even to mention the four people killed by the fires when
they reached Canberra on January 18, and the 400 houses destroyed.
Angry Snowy Mountains farmers and volunteer firefighters, who blame
green zealotry and incompetent land management practices for the
disaster, have lodged blistering submissions to the federal
parliamentary inquiry into those bushfires, which closes to submissions
tomorrow and is expected to report in November.
"The fires have been inexcusably hot in country where hazard reduction
has been obstructed in our locality," wrote one farmer, Noeline
Franklin, of Tin'ut, Brindabella.
The federal inquiry, one of five inquiries into January's fires, may be
the only one with the scope and political motivation to investigate the
failure by state agencies to adequately manage the land in their care.
The CSIRO's principal research scientist, Phil Cheney, Australia's
foremost bushfire researcher, also blames the intensity of the fires on
the fact that, "for the last 30 years there has been a continuing
decline in operational prescribed burning". He said yesterday the
January fires were "a truly historic event [producing] probably the most
extreme, widespread and continuously burnt area in living history".
And the reason history was made? "Really the only thing that has changed
is burning practices." The gradual removal of grazing stock from
mountain areas had also allowed undergrowth to build up, he said.
The amount of fuel on the ground had a quantifiable effect on the speed
and intensity of a fire, combined with weather and slope variables, said
Cheney. If ground fuel was kept under control, with regular cool,
controlled burns in winter, a fire would usually peter out in a eucalypt
forest. Hazard reduction did not prevent fires, but it kept them
manageable.
But, said Cheney, there had been a gradual transfer of responsibility
from land managers to firefighters, from prevention to suppression,
probably because it was more "politically attractive. You have heroes,
big dramas, helicopters."
So while millions of dollars are spent on sophisticated firefighting
toys like the Elvis chopper, there is no money for the kind of
professional, scientific prescribed burning program that would prevent
huge, runaway fires.
The extent of green opposition to hazard reduction was clear in the days
following the Canberra tragedy. The NSW Nature Conservation Council on
January 21 denounced the practice as "futile" and a "knee-jerk
reaction". The NCC chairman, Rob Pallin, said: "People who claim that
hazard reduction burning is a cure- all for bushfire risk are either
fooling themselves or deliberately trying to fool the public."
The Greens MLC Ian Cohen followed up the next day, calling for "an
assessment to the contribution of global warming to the severity of the
drought", and "education and community awareness programs to reduce the
incidence of arson".
Ah! Arson. When Sydney was ringed by bushfire at Christmas 2001, Carr
and his ministers offloaded blame onto pyromaniac 12-year-olds. But when
this year's fire emergency came, there were no pint-sized firebugs to
blame. Just God as dozens of lightning strikes hit national parks in
Victoria and NSW.
Kurt Lance, a Hawkesbury farmer and volunteer firefighter of 34 years,
warned of the Kosciuszko disaster last year, at the NSW parliamentary
bushfire inquiry. "The Kosciuszko area is a disaster waiting to happen
... and it will not stop until it gets to Canberra," he said then.
For the past month he has been taking pictures of the Kosciuszko
aftermath, showing areas where there is still no regrowth, just dead,
black charcoal.
He claims the fire was so hot in some places it has burned deep into the
ground, killing every living thing, and that it will take thousands of
years, if ever, to recover.
At a meeting he chaired in Bredbo in March, one of several around the
state, farmers and firefighters concluded lack of hazard reduction,
unmaintained fire trails and "green tape" were to blame for the scale of
the destruction. One volunteer fire brigade captain, Val Jeffery from
Tharwa, on the outskirts of Canberra, told how he conducted a
last-minute burn-off around the village the night before the fires swept
into Canberra. The result was that the fire left Tharwa unscathed.
Meanwhile, under the TransGrid power lines in the Snowy, locals say, the
surviving kangaroos and wallabies gather every night to eat the only
grass left in the area.
(3.5) The Greens against Hydro power
The Showy River was diverted to water the inland
Letter to the Canberra Times
26/10/98
We are once again in a Great Depression; the main difference from the
1930s is that, this time, we are not allowed to call it a depression ...
During the Hawke-Keating years {1984-96}, the last of the New Deal
public works schemes were killed off: Tasmania's Hydro-Electric
Commission was the last to go, killed by a combination of the Greens and
the high interest rates it had to pay to borrow money. If those major
public works had been funded by a People's Bank charging 1% or 2%
interest, then there would be no debt burden at all, and all such assets
would remain in Public hands.
The Public Works projects began with the Colorado Dam as a part of the
New Deal. The Old Left used to support such projects, but the Green
movement has persuaded the New Left to oppose them. Now one can hardly
find any support even for the Snowy Mountains Scheme, though it
destroyed no forests, has no siltation problems, creates clean renewable
electricity, and has greened huge areas of formerly desert land in
south-west NSW. The rice, wheat, fruit trees, grapes and native trees
that now flourish there all consume Carbon Dioxide, reducing our
greenhouse problems. Partly as a result of the Greens' vilification of
the Snowy Mountains Scheme, Canberra's electricity now comes from
brown-coal-fired stations in Victoria.
New Left opposition to such projects is not only hypocritical; it has
also contributed substantially to increased inequality. Postwar
Australia was built on the plan of Alfred Deakin - Protection and
Agrarian Socialism - and was much more equal and less divided than at
present. The migration from Southern Europe in the 1950s and 60s was
successful because there were extensive Public Works in rural areas -
projects such as the Snowy Mountains Scheme.
In opposing it, the Greens use a spurious argument about Banjo
Patterson's poem The Man From Snowy River. In that poem, Snowy River is
the name of a place (a locality). The poem is about the mountains, the
horses, and the rugged people, not about the river; apart from the
caption "man from snowy river", there is no mention of the river in the
poem. The damming of the Snowy River has allowed the greening of the
outback deserts - the true Greening of Australia - and is more in
keeping with the spirit of Banjo Patterson's poem, than is the deceptive
use of it by the Green lobby.
(3.6) Greens as Couch Potatoes
Letter to the Canberra Times
14/6/97
Those complaining about the reduced flow of the Snowy River should take
a drive around Australia. If they do, they might understand the reason
for the Snowy Mountains Scheme.
The Australian character, to the extent that there is such a thing, has
been produced by the experience of the Outback. The expression "back o'
Bourke" means something very real to those who have been there. Now,
however, the Australian character is under threat from a generation of
couch potatoes.
If, after travelling extensively through Northern and Central Australia,
the traveller comes to Wentworth and Mildura, with their system of locks
and weirs on the Murray River, he or she cannot but be impressed by the
difference that water makes to this land. Orange groves, mandarins and
other citrus; then, proceeding through Griffith and the MIA, rice and
all manner of crops and trees. It is not just a matter of utility, but
the beauty of these irrigated areas: only those who have come from the
austere deserts can fully appreciate it. Everything is green - this is
the real meaning of "Greening Australia".
Who has greater need for the melting snow of our Alps? Well-watered
Orbost, or the dry Outback? The couch potatoes should go and see our
desert continent for themselves.
(3.7) Greens against introduced species
Letter to the Canberra Times
July 21, 2002
The Greens now want to kick the brumbies {wild horses} out of the Snowy
Mountains.
Yet until recently they were using them, and the "Man From Snowy River"
theme, to partially undo the Snowy Mountains Scheme.
One can't understand the mindset of those who introduced such irrigation
schemes to the Mildura and Griffith areas, unless one has travelled the
dry, flat Outback. Today, we take the greenery of the irrigated areas
for granted, but before those schemes, these were semi-desert areas.
The Greens can't comprehend that. They can only see the human presence
as invasive, "the pink rat". With their implicit "Garden of Eden" myth,
they seem to want to undo all the achievements of earlier generations.
Getting rid of the brumbies from the Snowy Mountains, is like removing
the water buffaloes from northern Australia, or shooting all the wild
camels in the Outback - which will be their next campaign.
Why don't they want to get rid of the dingoes? They've only been here
5000 years - and they wiped out the thylacines {marsupial tiger, really
a marsupial dog}.
How did the wild pigs get here? Weren't they brought by humans (tribal
peoples), as they were brought to the island of New Guinea?
Would the Greens prefer a world dominated by dinosaurs? Jurassic Park,
however fanciful, vividly depicts the lunacy of those who want to "turn
back the clock" too far.
Nature is tough. The mass extinctions in the past were far more
devasting than what's happened in recent centuries; yet life bounced
back: new species proliferated, filling the vacant niches. That's how we
ourselves came on the scene.
One can be "green" without being "Green". It's time to anticipate the
Greens' next campaigns, and resist their extremism.
(3.8) Political Correctness as Reign of Terror
In his book The New Ecological Order, Luc Ferry (Professor of Philosophy
at the Sorbonne) refers to a "reign of terror" in universities in
English-speaking countries (p.118).
(3.9) A Letter - I don't know who I wrote it to
26/4/99
About a month ago, I attended a party, at which I was chatting with a
man who said he used be Deputy Mayor of Leeton.
The Leeton Cannery used to be the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere. It
was owned by the farmers.
This man told me that the Cannery was contacted by someone who
instructed them to put someone from the World Zionist Organization (I
assume Federation?) in as manager, or they would lose their markets.
The farmers refused. Their fruit was sent overseas on ships, but was not
unloaded. In consequence, the Cannery had to close down.
{end}
(3.10) Ban on out-of-area Native Trees
Letter to the Canberra Times
2/03/01
The ban on the sale of Cootamundra Wattle (Acacia Baileyana) and Acacia
Dealbata is a stupid move.
ACT nurseries supply not only the ACT, but the surrounding region too.
Frosts outside the built-up areas sometimes reach -17 degrees {C}. On my
low-lying block at Braidwood, Balieyana and Dealbata are among the few
wattles that survives such hardships at 50% success rate; most wattles
just die - including the Blue Bush pictured in Ian Warden's article (CT,
10 March).
People who plant natives in such hard climates often lose hundreds of
trees and thousands of dollars, before discovering which ones survive in
their area; not to mention the disappointment and lost time.
The Conservation Council's ban on Baileyana and Dealbata smacks of
city-slicker smugness. What next? The uprooting of fruit trees, the
deportation of all white and Asian Australians, to satisfy some
arbitrary political criterion?
Suppose a eucapypt from Tasmania be found to do well on the harsh
Monaro. Can its introduction not be justified in evolutionary terms? Or
have our biologists become functionalists preaching a new fundamentalist
doctrine, a new version of the Garden of Eden?
{end}
The above letter was supported by a follow-up letter from a native plant
grower, a nurserywoman from Murrumbateman. She wrote that Acacia
Dealbata is suitable for controlling erosion in watercourses. She said
that, because it forms suckers, it develops into thickets, and that it
can replace the introduced willows to hold the soil together in wet
places.
(3.11) Irrigation and Salinity
At the farm I recently stayed at in the Wagga area, I saw an erosion
gully that was several metres deep and just as wide. I recommended
growing Acacia Dealbata in it, as per the nurserywoman's advice.
However, the Greens do not list this as a suitable species, because it
is "out of area".
On account of the drought, the farming family had insufficient water,
and was pumping the groundwater to make up. This underground water
contains salts that take the skin off your fingers, if you use it for
washing the dishes.
Salinity problems are caused by salts deposited long ago, when the sea
level was much higher, and oceans covered much of the land.
Irrigation, by raising the water table, brings those salts to the
surface. To counter this, the water table must be lowered, by
(a) reduced irrigation, preferably drip irrigation rather than flood
irrigation (however, rice requires the latter; each rice paddy has a
water-wheel which meters the flow)
(b) tree-planting
(c) tile drainage (deep, sub-surface drains at places where impermeable
layers keep the water too close to the surface)
When we called at the rice mills at Leeton, we found them closed to the
public; later, I heard that staff had been laid off. Someone told me
that Australia is usually the biggest exporter of rice in the world, but
that this summer the water-allocation for rice was cut to 37% of the
usual amount, and that if the drought continues next summer, it's likely
that no rice will be grown.
Further north, in the dry wheat-growing areas, many small towns seemed
destitute, the shops boarded-up. The bigger towns, such as West Wyalong
and Grenfell, were better off, but one still noted a preponderance of
older people. The town culture seemed more old-fashioned than the big
cities, less modernist.
In the rural towns out West, one finds a high percentage of older-style
houses made of timber or fibro. I noticed a lack of second-hand
bookshops, and other stimulants of the mind. Mechanization of farms has
pushed rural people to the cities, where they become "consumers".
On the way to the irrigated areas, we called at Berembed Weir, on the
Murrumbidgee River. The caretaker explained that a manmade canal
(earthern, not concrete) takes water from here to all the irrigated
areas. The irrigation control centre at Leeton used to ring up to
request water, but now the sluice gates are operated remotely by
microwave signal.
The major storage is at Burrinjuck Dam, upstream on the river. When
water is requested, it is released simultaneously at both. The water
from Burrinjuck takes 3 to 4 days to reach Berembed, by which time the
weir is very low.
Camping is allowed at Berembed Weir, but the Green authority put up two
"No Camping" signs to deter campers. These signs are placed at two
locations where camping is banned, but there's no sign mentioning that
camping is allowed across the weir ... an example of Green
unfriendliness.
Queensland and the Northern Territory are the place to go, to experience
the wild without such hostility.
--
Peter Myers, 21 Blair St, Watson ACT 2602, Australia
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers ph +61 2 62475187
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